


Leafstar’s Home for Misfit and/or Wayward Warriors

by Kizulu



Category: Warriors - Erin Hunter
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Cats joining SkyClan, Crack, Gen, Leafstar is very done with this particular nonsense, Leafstar knows how to curse, SkyClan (Warriors), SkyClan has really had a rough time of things, SkyClan is haunted, SkyClan knows how to curse, no really
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-14 11:40:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28919955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kizulu/pseuds/Kizulu
Summary: Honestly, Leafstar should have known better than to try to find the Clans. She was smarter than all of this, really. SkyClan always seemed to catch trouble from the other four Clans, and yet apparently the stars thought that involving them in THIS particular mess had been an idea worth acting on.And now she’s got just about every unusual warrior around the lake barging into her den, asking to join SkyClan. God, she’d thought the ravine was lonely, but what wouldn’t she give for it now.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 13





	1. The Beginning

Leafstar’s misfortune begins when, inexplicably, Rowanstar decides to dissolve his Clan right after reforming it. This, surprisingly, is not the weirdest thing to happen to her since SkyClan’s triumphant return to civilized society. It’s _close_ , because _are you kidding me right now, StarClan?_ , but not quite.

“Let me get this straight,” she says, because if she’s hearing this right then she’s eating all the mousetails in the fresh-kill pile this week, and StarClan knows she does not want to do _that_. “You regained control of your Clan.”

Rowanstar shuffles his paws. “Yes.”

“And your idea with what to do with this regained control is to… immediately give it up.”

“Yes.”

“To SkyClan.”

“Yes.”

“Instead of just… going back to your territory and continuing ShadowClan. As it has continued for apparently countless generations.”

Rowanstar’s muzzle twists as if he’s not quite considered this. “...Yes.”

“God, I thought _SkyClan_ had problems.” There’s a general murmur in the ShadowClan ranks about what exactly a _god_ is, but honestly Leafstar couldn’t care even if she tried.

SkyClan is less confused, probably because literally all of them were at one point a kittypet, rogue, loner, or descended directly from one. Sandynose, for his part, shifts from paw to paw. “We kind of _do_ ,” he offers.

“We could be called ProblemsClan,” adds Macgyver.

“Everyone’s kind of… dead,” Bellaleaf chimes in.

“That wasn’t even a question,” Leafstar spits without heat, because there’s no explaining this turn of events. “And even if it had been, I didn’t ask you!”

Firefern opens her mouth. Leafstar glares at her. Firefern closes her mouth.

Rowanstar looks increasingly ruffled from where he’s standing flanked by his current—former?—current Clanmates, who look anywhere between confused, terrified, resigned, and oddly bemused. Tawnypelt is staring hawk talons into her mate’s pelt, and Leafstar is decidedly not getting in the midst of _that_. “Will you take us?” Rowanstar pleads.

 _If this is the mettle of the lake Clan leaders,_ Leafstar thinks to herself crossly, _then Firestar was talking a_ lot _of h_ _orse shit._ She sits without grace, feeling strangely lost in this situation. _Damn him._ “I’m changing your name,” she says to Firefern. “He doesn’t deserve it.”

Clearly confused, Firefern opens her mouth. Leafstar glares at her. Clearly irritated, Firefern closes her mouth.

Hawkwing clears his throat. “Uh, Leafstar?”

“What?” Leafstar says, annoyed. “Of course they can stay. We’re not a god-forsaken melting pot of a Clan for nothing. Who do you fuckers think I am?”

“What’s a melting pot?” a ShadowClan warrior Leafstar vaguely recognizes as Strikestone whispers. The black tom next to him shrugs from where he’s staring oddly at the fresh-kill pile.

“What’s a fucker?” Sunnykit pipes up from where she’s sticking her head out of the nursery. Tinycloud looks distinctly less amused by the proceedings than her kit. Sunnykit’s sunny ginger head abruptly disappears back into the nursery.

“Fuck,” Leafstar says again, quieter this time. “God damn it.”

ShadowClan is staring at her like she has two heads. SkyClan is heading back to whatever they’d broken off from for this meeting, generally unperturbed by the proceedings. Leafstar feels almost as if she should be offended by how little her Clan cares about all of this, but she supposes that when you’re faced with genocide enough, everything less becomes trivial.

Violetpaw sidles up to her, looking much more perturbed than her fellow SkyClan cats, but much less perturbed than her fellow ShadowClan cats. “Uh, Leafstar?” she asks timidly.

Leafstar shakes herself. “Yes?”

Violetpaw glances this way and that, as if trying to make sure she’s not overheard _literally in the middle of a large grouping of cats_. It probably isn’t the _smartest_ thing to do, but eh. Leafstar can’t judge. “You really, really can’t trust ShadowClan.”

Leafstar shakes herself again, harder this time, because _wow_ this cat has really missed out on all of the horrifying murder sprees her birth Clan has been subjected to over the years. “You’ll get used to it,” she says in what’s meant to be an assuring tone.

Violetpaw’s expression takes a turn for the horrified, so Leafstar has definitely missed that particular mark. “What do you mean, _get used to it?”_

“Get back with me when someone’s attempted to kill you at least twice,” Leafstar instructs, and then pauses. “Maybe thrice. Until then, Frecklewish spent some of her apprenticeship learning from the kittypet of Twoleg therapists.”

“Therapists? What’s a ther—” Violetpaw breaks off on her own, evidently deciding that whatever questions are on her mind aren’t worth the answers she’d get by asking them. “Sure.” The word is dubious at best. “...Thanks, Leafstar.”

Rowanstar is still standing awkwardly in the clearing. His Clan—hers, now, she supposes—looks even more awkward. “So… is that it?” he asks hesitantly.

“I mean,” Leafstar says, confused as to why the new SkyClan cats aren’t dispersing. “What do you want? For us to attack you? Drive you out? To go to war until StarClan themselves come down from the heavens and go, ‘hey, cut that shit out, you miserable excuses for cats?’ I prefer to skip all that.”

Rowanstar, to his credit, looks less dazed than the Clan he’d led just moments prior. “I guess I’m Rowanclaw again now,” he says, blinking.

“This is the most mousebrained thing I’ve ever borne witness to,” declares Tawnypelt from beside him. “StarClan. Was Brackenfur right all along?”

“Right about what?” Rowanclaw asks as if he has literally any room to judge, his head snapping toward his mate as if controlled by a spring.

Tawnypelt glances at current-or-former-who-knows-anymore ThunderClan/SkyClan apprentice Twigpaw, who’s hovering confusedly about the clearing. “Nothing,” she says instead of anything meaningful.

Leafstar is hardly a gossip, but there’s a story there, she’s sure of it. “So,” she says, getting back down to business. “How haunted is your territory?”

 _“Haunted?”_ pipes a white tom from the back. 

“...Yes,” says Leafstar, now wondering whether it was Rowanstar who was particularly dumb or if idiocy was an inherited ShadowClan trait. “If SkyClan is taking the old ShadowClan land, I need to know the places we need to avoid at night, any places we need to leave food or herb offerings at, any places we need to perform exorcisms…” she trails off, noting the blank looks in the former ShadowClan cats’ eyes. “You know,” she finishes, feeling almost as awkward as Rowanclaw looks. “The works.”

“Leafstar.” Tawnypelt looks just on the side of apoplectic. “Why would our territory be haunted?”

Hawkwing blinks, looking over his shoulder at Leafstar as if he can’t quite decide whether the question had actually been serious. “Because of the _genocide_?” he asks slowly.

“Genocide?!” yelps a black Shad—SkyClan queen.

Sparrowpelt stops short from where he’s gone back to work hauling branches toward the apprentices’ den, clearly shocked. “You mean to tell us that you’ve never dealt with genocide?”

“No way,” gasps Reedpaw, beside him, as former ShadowClan looks at each other in confusion and not a small dose of horror. “Not even a little bit of it?”

“Uh,” Violetpaw breaks in, looking suddenly wary of her surroundings. “No?”

“Oh, kid,” Leafstar chuckles. “You’ve got a lot to learn.”

“What’s a ki—” Violetpaw starts and then stops, seeming to already be getting the hang of questions.

Hawkwing sighs. “This definitely counts as a loss for you in the betting pool, Leafstar,” he says. “This is absolutely the most ridiculous thing to happen this week.”

“Damn it,” says Leafstar. “Are mouse tails any better than rat tails?”

One of the ShadowClan elders shakes his head in a way that speaks of many moons of mouse-and-rat-tail experience. Leafstar curses. Hawkwing, for his part, looks distraught about how few mice are on the pile. ShadowClan looks well and truly disturbed.

Firefern opens her mouth. Harrybrook presses his tail over her muzzle. Looking a little apoplectic herself, Firefern closes her mouth.

Everything is quiet for a long, grueling moment. “So,” says Frecklewish from the opposite side of the clearing. “Does that mean I don’t need this sage?”

“I... guess not,” says Leafstar slowly.

Sagenose, clearly standing in for actual sage, looks distinctly relieved.


	2. Sun-warmed Stones and Actual, Living, Unfortunately-Breathing Traitors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Violetshine brings traitors to camp. Leafstar should have stayed in the gorge.

Leafstar is minding her own damn business, thank you very much, when Violetshine comes trudging through the camp entrance with living, breathing traitors in tow. “This,” Leafstar says from the flat, sunshine-warmed rock she’s lying on, “is the worst thing you could’ve done, Violetshine.”

Violetshine cringes, looking everywhere but up at Leafstar. “They were in the old ShadowClan camp,” she explains, voice strained. “I brought them back here.”

“I can see that,” says Leafstar. “Reedpaw!”

Reedpaw startles from where she’s gaping, open-mouthed, at Yarrowleaf. “Er, yes?”

“What’s our rule about potential genocide-causing events?”

Reedpaw blinks. “Kill anything and anyone that might cause them indiscriminately?”

It’s a new rule, made for the aftermath of the gorge, so Leafstar will ignore the way Reedpaw phrases it like a question. “Good job.”

Violetshine looks horrified. “Is that a real rule?”

Leafstar levels her with a baleful stare. “What do you think?” she asks. When Violetshine just gulps nervously, she continues: “it’s not like we don’t get murdered on a regular basis. God, Violetshine. Speaking of which,” she says, looking around idly, “where’s Finpaw?”

Sandynose looks vaguely guilty. “Gone,” he says.

“Murdered?”

Several former ShadowClan cats begin to look vaguely sick, as if _murder_ in the lives of _trained killers_ was somehow unthinkable.

“Er, no,” says Sandynose, now looking a bit embarrassed. “He kind of… went to ThunderClan. With Twigpaw.”

He’s clearly expecting some sort of reaction, but he doesn’t get one. Instead, Leafstar stretches back out on the flat boulder, looking lazily up at the sky. “You know,” she says with a yawn, “normally I’d be upset about this—or at least a little annoyed—but honestly, the camp is full, and if it gets Twigpaw out of here, all the better.”

Violetshine winces. Pointedly, Leafstar ignores her.

“Um,” says the yellow-furred traitor from where she’s standing, crowded by her kin.

“Um,” echoes Leafstar. “Get out.”

There’s general noises of approval from most of the always-SkyClan cats and about half of the newly-SkyClan ones. 

Violetshine, who Leafstar’s still not sure about, shifts awkwardly away from the traitors. Yarrowleaf’s ginger face is set in resignation. Sleekwhisker, the golden-colored one, looks more apoplectic than Hawkwing had after his father was killed by Darktail, which… says a lot, really, especially considering that Sleekwhisker is a huge fan of murder. And Darktail.

“You can’t kick them out!” Tawnypelt yowls, as if she has any authority at all in this situation. “Rowanclaw, tell her!”

Rowanclaw buries his head in his paws, looking incredibly embarrassed. As he should. Since he gave up on his Clan and blended them with SkyClan. And then seemed to have no qualms in letting his Clanmates be ugly about the whole thing. “God don’t like ugly,” Leafstar mutters.

Violetshine, one of three cats near enough to hear her at that voice level, opens her mouth. Firefern, looking incredibly resigned, closes it for her.

“What did you say?!” spits Sleekwhisker, like she somehow has the right. Which she doesn’t. At all. Especially after all of the goddamned _murder_.

The gray ex-ShadowClan cat Leafstar has come to recognize as Strikestone raises his tail. Leafstar, feeling like she should have died seasons ago or maybe just… not lived at all, nods at him.

“Not that I have the right to make an argument,” says Strikestone, and at least _this_ cat knows some respect, “but Sleekwhisker kind of-definitely killed our mother.”

Maybe it’s a problem that Leafstar doesn’t really latch onto the whole familicide aspect so much as the _our._ “Oh God, you’re _siblings_?”

Strikestone has the grace to look extremely, incredibly, _mortifyingly_ embarrassed. “Unfortunately,” he says, and Leafstar _likes_ this one. _He_ might be able to deal with a casual genocide or three.

Juniperclaw, in front of the fresh-kill pile, grunts in agreement. “We’re Dawnpelt and Crowfrost’s kits,” he says, as if that means anything to a Clan that wasn’t around to know any of former-ShadowClan’s dead. “They’re both dead now, so that probably doesn’t matter, but it’s true.”

“And Sleekwhisker killed at least one of them!” Strikestone insists.

“At _least_ one?” Sleekwhisker asks, sounding mildly affronted. “Do you really think I killed both?”

“She’s not denying it,” Strikestone hisses, ducking behind Sandynose, who looks as if he’d rather join ThunderClan himself than stay where he is.

“You know what,” Sleekwhisker continues, voice suddenly lighter, “that’s actually kind of flattering. Thank you, Strikey.”

Strikestone’s eyes glaze over in what looks like some sort of trauma-induced flashback, which Leafstar can understand intimately.

“Okay, stop picking on your brother,” says Tawnypelt. It’s the kind of scold that only comes from family, and _dear StarClan no_. This whole fucking clan was fucking nuts, even without ShadowClan involved (and dear _god_ did they have problems), but that all paled in comparison to this. The Rowanclaw-Tawnypelt clan-within-a-Clan was going to give her _ulcers_ , mark her words.

Leafstar takes a moment to regret, once again, leaving the gorge. At least there she hadn’t had to deal with inter-Clan bullshit. “You’re not denying that she killed her mother,” Leafstar says to Tawnypelt, who has the grace to look at least slightly taken aback. “Does that not bother you at all?”

“Well. I mean,” Tawnypelt blusters, shooting looks at Rowanclaw, who absolutely still has his paws over his ears. “We’re all one Clan.”

Leafstar blinks, choosing to ignore the implication that she isn’t in charge of said _one Clan_. “This whole familicide thing is… strange,” she says instead. “I kind of feel like you wouldn’t mind so much if Sleekwhisker murdered your mate as well. Which. Is kind of disturbing, I’ve got to be honest.”

“She wouldn’t do that!” Tawnypelt declares.

“She… literally killed her mother,” Leafstar reminds her. “Or _allegedly_ killed her mother, maybe, but she doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to profess her innocence, so I’m going with literally.”

“But she’s sorry!”

“She doesn’t _look_ sorry.”

Both she-cats glance over toward Sleekwhisker, who pulls her bored-looking face into something exaggeratedly contrite. Leafstar kind of wants to vomit just looking at her.

“See?!” hisses Tawnypelt. “She won’t kill anyone! Look how sorry she is!”

Sleekwhisker’s face morphs into disbelief for a moment before going back to the scrunched-up expression apparently meant to convey sorrow.

“She looks constipated,” says Leafstar.

“How would you know?”

Leafstar winces. “That’s between me and Frecklewish,” she says firmly.

Across the clearing, Frecklewish echoes the wince.

“Er, not to interrupt or anything,” interrupts Strikestone, “but I’d really rather not wake up dead in my nest because Sleekwhisker’s poisoned me.”

“How do you wake up dead?” Juniperclaw asks. He’s plucking feathers off a starling now. It’s not an unusual task, but Juniperclaw makes it look oddly unsettling.

Strikestone thinks for a moment. “...StarClan?”

“I mean, I _guess_ ,” Juniperclaw mutters. “But you’re still—”

“Okay, back to me,” interrupts Leafstar. “The leader of this Clan. The one with the authority. Chosen by StarClan. Thus the -star.”

Everyone goes silent, as if they’re actually listening to her for once in their miserable lives. And Leafstar knows misery.

“I was not actually expecting that to work,” says Leafstar, a little startled. “I don’t even really know what to say now. Traitors are bad and should be executed?”

Firefern raises her tail. Leafstar ignores her.

Yarrowleaf, now ensconced by her own family, steps forward. Her ears are flicking nervously, eyes darting back to her family behind her; Leafstar takes a moment to hope and pray that they’re not as cursed as Sleekwhisker’s family.

“Uh, Leafstar,” Yarrowleaf says, shuffling her paws. “I’m kind of expecting kits.”

“Are you serious right now?” demands Leafstar, because this cannot _possibly_ be her life.

Yarrowleaf glances at her belly, then at her family, then shudders in the general direction of Sleekwhisker, apparently not immune to her general aura of murderousness. “Uh, yes?”

“God fucking _damn_ _it_ ,” declares Leafstar, because public perception is important and she’s definitely not going down for re-exiling a queen, of all things. “You can live.”

Tawnypelt looks hopeful. “And stay?”

Leafstar hates everyone. She absolutely, unequivocally _does_. “Yes. _For now_.”

A ragged cheer goes up, interspersed with a healthy amount of booing and some general shuffling away from Sleekwhisker, who’s dropped her constipated expression to again look incredibly murderous. Leafstar is _so_ posting guards on that particular headcase. And herself.

_Actually,_ muses Leafstar as she goes back to her sunbathing, _maybe it’s time to just give up on all this nonsense and die already_. “Yeah,” she says to no one in particular. “Death sounds nice.”

It’s probably a credit to how used to bullshit SkyClan is that the only strange looks she gets for that particular comment are entirely sympathizing.

**Author's Note:**

> Take two at warriors fanfiction. I tried.
> 
> Also, Firefern lives because I like her name.
> 
> ...comment? please? i'll love you forever?


End file.
